Takata To Issue Nationwide Airbag Recall

Japanese airbag maker Takata has been under massive amounts of pressure to issue a nationwide recall to fix its faulty airbags, which affects more than 14 million cars. Takata was adamant that the problem occurred only in high-humidity states, like Florida, but NHTSA just ordered them to go nationwide.This will be a massive recall, with reverberations across the industry.

Takata didn't really have much choice in the matter, as it turns out. Last week, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration gave the company an ultimatum – recall all the airbags, everywhere in the United States, or face consequences. The deadline was set for this morning. Said consequences weren't exactly clear, given the little power for extracting real corporate blood that NHTSA has, but the promised legal action and civil penalties were definitely not good. Combined with the ensuing public fallout from the fact that Takata's airbags killed people, Takata knew about it, and then reportedly covered it up, you had a looming storm of a massive hit to the company.

This will be a massive recall, with reverberations across the industry.

Said consequences weren't exactly clear, given the little power for extracting real corporate blood that NHTSA has, but the promised legal action and civil penalties were definitely not good. Combined with the ensuing public fallout from the fact that Takata's airbags killed people, Takata knew about it, and then reportedly covered it up, you had a looming storm of a massive hit to the company.

This whole Takata mess falls heavily on Honda and it seems like Honda hasn't had exactly the best record when it comes to safety, or at least in reporting their issues to NHTSA as required by law. Specifically, they underreported more than 1,700 incidents involving injury or death. Of these, at least eight involved accidents with ruptured Takata airbag inflators, including a death. To find out more about Check with the NHTSA.